The barber boy from Segringen
The barber boy from Segringen is a calendar story by Johann Peter Hebel , which he wrote in 1808 for the Rhineland family friend and also published in 1811 in the treasure chest of the Rhineland family friend . She tells of a soldier who learns that you shouldn't threaten anyone, otherwise the threat could fall back on you.
content
One day a soldier comes to a pub in Segringen and demands a barber to cut his beard. If this hurts him, he will be killed. When the barber and his companion flee out of fear, the barber's apprentice shaves the man's beard, hoping for the promised reward.
After the apprentice shaves him without cutting him, the man asks him why he wasn't afraid. The apprentice replies that he killed him first. Since then, the soldier has never said to anyone that he might kill them.
interpretation
The calendar story can be read as a story of David and Goliath, in which the supposedly inferior surprisingly turns out to be superior in the end. The officer, apparently a man of action, appears as miles gloriosus , who must be freed from his boasting by the carefree apprentice. Lothar Wittmann accordingly emphasizes "the dialectic of word and deed" in his interpretation. He sees in the contradicting figure of the barber boy a representative of ratio , in which the enlightening virtue of reason is paired with “youthful daring”.
reception
The calendar story was processed poetically by Adelbert von Chamisso in his ballad The Right Barber from 1833.
expenditure
- Johann Peter Hebel: Treasure chest of the Rhenish family friend. Critical complete edition with the calendar woodcuts. Edited by Winfried Theiss. Stuttgart: Reclam 1981 (Universal Library 142), ISBN 978-3-15-000142-4 .
- Johann Peter Hebel: The Calendar Stories. All the stories from the Rhineland family friend. Edited by Hannelore Schlaffer and Harald Zils. Munich: Hanser 1999. ISBN 978-3-446-19752-7 .
literature
- Lothar Wittmann: Johann Peter Hebels Mirror of the World: Interpretations of 53 Calendar Stories, Frankfurt a. M./Berlin/Bonn/München: 1969.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Lothar Wittmann: Johann Peter Hebels mirror of the world. Interpretations of 53 calendar stories . Diesterweg, Frankfurt a. Main / Berlin / Bonn / Munich 1969, p. 261-265 .